Tribeca: Steve Zahn and a Sasquatch
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Steve Zahn’s Dances, Rose Byrne’s Tow, and a Rob Eggers Christmas movie.
Let’s go!
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She Dances, starring Steve Zahn and Ethan Hawke, is one of those profound/wacky indie films that sneaks up and captures your heart.
The film, which just premiered at Tribeca, follows an estranged father (Steve Zahn) and daughter (Steve’s actual daughter, Audrey) who mask their grief until an incident at a regional dance competition allows them to drop their defenses and emotionally reunite.
We sat down with star/co-writer Steve Zahn (White Lotus S1) and director/co-writer Rick Gomez to see how they created this deeply personal tale.
Steve shared:
“I've lived this world for a long time with my daughter, competitive dance, I took her to her last competition.”
Gomez added:
“I lost a really dear friend during COVID… so there was a lot of grief.”
The alchemy of these two elements birthed a story about a father so removed from the main tragedy in his life that he stifles his grief reflexively.
Gomez stated:
“He's just not ready to be inside that thing at all.”
But this disconnect from his pain only cleaves the divide with his daughter further.
Gomez summed it up:
“That metaphor of grief, let's not hide it away. Let's not turn our eyes away from the hard thing and… using art to express how we feel about it. That's the move.”
The beauty of the film lies in how the fragile shell we put up to mask tragedy gradually comes down, step by step, until both characters realize the way through their sorrow is to form a shared language of solace and joy.
She Dances would be well at home with Bleecker Street’s slate.
For More:
Our interview with Steve Zahn and Rick Gomez. A masterclass in pulling from personal experience to create beautiful cinema. Plus, a deep dive into why rehearsal is imperative for filmmakers.
THE INDUSTRY TLDR
Universal and Disney sue Midjourney AI.
Netflix develops Tuesday Night Titans, a wrestling series from WWE RAW.
Universal acquires The Worst Man, an action comedy spec.
Blumhouse’s Ma 2 hires Ashley Nicole Black (Ted Lasso) to script.
Tow, starring Rose Byrne in a career standout performance, debuts at Tribeca.
Vincent Cassel to star in Netflix’s Quasimodo.
Ariel Winter stars in Don’t Log Off, a screenlife thriller.
Aaron Pierre joins Patrick Schwarzenegger and Margaret Qualley in Amazon MGM’s Love of Your Life.
Obituaries: Chris Robinson (General Hospital) and Harris Yulin (Scarface).
All You Need Is Kill acquired by GKIDS.
Laika announces a new stop-motion fantasy penned by John August (Frankenweenie).
Robert Eggers to direct A Christmas Carol for WB starring Willem Dafoe.
19-year-old Kane Parsons to direct A24’s Backrooms, an adaptation of his viral YouTube series.
THE INDUSTRY NEWS
Hollywood sues Big AI tech. Universal and Disney sued Midjourney AI, which generates images and videos from user prompts.
The suit alleges that MidJourney trained its AI on characters from:
Disney
Marvel
LucasFilm
20th Century
Universal
DreamWorks
The evidence is pretty striking, but what’s crazier is that the full case, filed with the U.S. District Court in LA, shows how users can literally request stills from the Blu-ray of Marvel’s Infinity War, and Midjourney will “generate” them (see above).
We don’t want to see the internet becoming a cesspool of DIY Yoda, Darth Vader, Homer Simpson, Spiderman, Buzz Lightyear, and Simba (all characters named in the lawsuit).
New in development, Netflix series Tuesday Night Titans comes from creator and writer Michael Notarile (WWE Monday Night RAW), with Wicked director Jon M. Chu attached as EP through his Electric Somewhere banner.
Official Synopsis:
A tenacious writer risks her career in the big leagues to recruit her estranged childhood best friend.
Set in the spectacle-driven world of professional wrestling, the development news follows Netflix’s multi-billion-dollar deal with WWE.
Mini Tidbit:
Universal Pictures has acquired The Worst Man, a new action comedy spec from Matt Altman and Dave Matalon, with 87North (The Fall Guy) producing under its first-look deal. The writers previously sold Three Hitmen and a Baby to Lionsgate as part of the same deal.
Blumhouse’s Ma 2, starring Octavia Spencer, hires Ashley Nicole Black (writer: Ted Lasso) for the script. Also, Michael Showalter (The Idea of You) is in talks to direct. A comedy writer and a rom/com director? Sounds like an interesting sequel. The original grossed $60M on a $5M budget (trailer).
Comcast spinoff, Versant, announces TNK Marketing founder, Frank Tanki, will serve as CMO of entertainment and sports, and former NBCU SVP, Tom Clendenin, has been appointed CMO for CNBC and MSNBC.
Weta (VFX: LOTR, Avatar) has hired Lee Berger as Business Development Senior Producer. Berger previously served as EVP of biz dev for DNEG (Dune 2).
John Solberg, FX’s EVP of Publicity, will step down in January after 28 years at the company. I had the pleasure of meeting Solberg, and his magnanimous demeanor and championing of creatives was inspiring.
Renewals:
Paramount+’s SkyMed (for Season 4)
Amazon’s The World Between Us (for Season 3)
Fox’s Martin Scorsese Presents The Saints (for Season 2)
Trailers:
Apple TV+’s The Foundation (Season 3)
Release date: July 11th
Warner Bros.’ Superman
Release date: July 11th
Prime’s The Summer I Turned Pretty (Season 3)
Release date: July 16th
Release dates:
Universal’s Violent Night 2
Release date: Dec. 4, 2026
Cast: David Harbour (as a naughty Santa)
THE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
I knew I wasn’t the only one who hated towing companies…
In underdog film Tow, Rose Byrne is beautifully moving as a down-on-her-luck woman seeking justice. From director Stephanie Laing (Apple TV+’s Your Friends & Neighbors), the film premiered at Tribeca in Spotlight Narrative.
The film follows former addict Amanda (Byrne), who, when the car she’s living in is wrongfully towed, is forced to rely on the kindness of a nonprofit lawyer (Dominic Sessa) as well as her own perseverance to survive.
Never seen without her bright pink bandana, Byrne balances a recklessness while being fearlessly bold. Amanda is clearly flawed but endearing enough to love and root for, regardless. At the climax of the film, during a deposition hearing, Byrne is completely vulnerable, giving a career-best monologue.
Byrne recently shone in A24’s Sundance pic If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, described as “a horror movie about motherhood” (which could also apply to Tow).
Vincent Cassel will star in Netflix’s Quasimodo in the titular role, based on Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
Cassel (Black Swan) has actually played a physically repulsive character with a heart of gold in the French version of The Beauty and the Beast (trailer).
Quasimodo synopsis:
In 1830 Paris, amid cholera and brewing revolution, the real-life inspiration for Hugo's Quasimodo finds himself torn between political upheaval and forbidden romance.
We look forward to seeing Cassel overflowing with empathy and kindness, as he often takes much darker fare. Jean-Francois Richet (Gerard Butler’s Plane) will direct. Éric Besnard (Wrath of Man) will write. Filming kicks off in France this summer.
Things are getting a whole lot scarier for Modern Family actress Ariel Winter in the new trailer for Don’t Log Off, a screenlife thriller from writer-director brothers Brandon and Garrett Baer.
Official Synopsis:
Annie (Winter) scrambles to help rescue her best friend after she goes missing during a surprise birthday video call.
Winter said:
“The fear in this film is… about what happens when the lines between virtual and reality start to blur.”
We like seeing Winter go a little darker. This hits theaters for a limited release on July 11th.
Tidbit:
Aaron Pierre joins Margaret Qualley and Patrick Schwarzenegger in Amazon MGM’s Love of Your Life, from DP-turned-director Rachel Morrison (The Fire Inside). We loved Pierre in Rebel Ridge; his methodical character work made it spiritually close to a samurai film.
Jessica Frances Dukes (Ozark) joins MGM+’s The Westies as FBI Special Agent Birdie Polk. Set in 1980s Hell’s Kitchen, the period crime drama explores the rise of a brutal Irish gang amid tensions with the Italian mafia. Created by Chris Brancato, the series co-stars J.K. Simmons and Titus Welliver, and begins filming in July.
Boston Blue (spinoff: Blue Bloods) casts Black-ish’s Marcus Scribner as a series regular. The show will follow Donnie Wahlberg reprising his role as Danny Reagan, who leaves the city to join the Boston Police Department.
Two Obits:
“I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV!” Beloved General Hospital actor Chris Robinson has passed away. He is best known as Dr. Rick Webber for nearly a decade on ABC’s long-running soap. One of his first films was Burt Lancaster’s Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).
Harris Yulin has passed away at 88. He’s had an illustrious film career, acting in Scarface, Training Day, and our favorite, Ghostbusters 2 as the mad-as-a-hornet judge whose bile-spewing verdict unleashes a… (ghost clip).
Mini Tidbits:
Peacock’s The Five-Star Weekend, headlined by Jennifer Garner, will co-star D’Arcy Carden.
British rapper Stormzy launches #Merky Films. Debuting with Big Man, a short film directed by Oscar-winner Aneil Karia.
FESTIVALS
Edge of Tomorrow animated? GKIDS (distributor: The Boy and the Heron) has picked up All You Need is Kill, a Japanese animated film based on the source material for Edge of Tomorrow. They’ve grabbed North American rights + Ireland, UK, Australia, and NZ. We love the phantasmagorical time-traveling plant aliens in the trailer.
The 78th Cannes has concluded. And the 79th Cannes has been announced for May 12-23, 2026.
Laika (prod co: Coraline, Corpse Bride) has tapped screenwriter John August (Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie) to pen a new stop-motion film directed by Pete Candeland. The film will be centered on a theater-loving teen drawn into a surreal, eternal bacchanal while searching for her mother. Announced at Annecy.
INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS
The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman, Nosferatu, and A Christmas Carol? Yes, Rob Eggers is remaking the Christmas movie A Christmas Carol for Warner Bros.
I can imagine his take digs into the bruised soul of Ebenezer Scrooge (Willem Dafoe) and has some macabre ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.
The morally uplifting transformation of Scrooge feels hard to envision in an Eggers film, but perhaps he’ll key into the purgatory of guilt and deepen the material with foreboding visuals. That would be something to see.
Eggers’ next film is still slated to be Werwulf for Focus Features.
Who else better to navigate the backrooms than its creator: 19-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons has been confirmed to be directing A24's adaptation of his own YouTube series of the same name, which has gotten 187M views.
It centers on filmmakers who fall into a liminal, yellow warehouse-like office space, where they encounter strange beings. Parsons certainly has a mind for the eerie, and it's fascinating to see how much video games have translated into his work, the first backrooms look a lot like the first Doom.
YouTubers could easily be a pipeline to directors; Markiplier’s horror film and Chris Stuckman's recent deal with Neon come to mind. While you are waiting, get lost in the backrooms.
Mini Tidbit:
Paul Schrader’s new film is The Basics of Philosophy, starring Jack Huston (Day of the Fight), and centers on “an intellectual university philosophy professor.” It is said to be similar in style to First Reformed and The Card Counter. E.g., a man takes matters into his own hands, enduring the physically heavy repercussions of his sins.
Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, co-founder of musical group The Roots, is writing and directing a hip-hop narrative film in partnership with tech company Wonderoom to show off their new immersion tech. Launching in Spring 2026 with Questlove.
Producer Pietro Valsecchi, behind the box office hit Quo Vado (trailer), is developing a Luciano Pavarotti biopic following the Italian maestro who became a global cultural icon. Gomorrah writer Leonardo Fasoli is penning the script.
ON THIS DAY
1963. Cleopatra premieres in NYC.
Written by Gabriel Miller, Spencer Carter, and Madelyn Menapace.
Editor: Gabriel Miller.
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